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E3 2016: Quake Champions Brings Back the Name but Not the Game

As we had predicted, following the success of Doom, Bethesda and id Software have gone back in their library to find another classic title to bring into the modern age. While the reboot of Doom kept much of what made gamers fall in love with it (with a few modern twists), it sounds like id’s reboot of Quake with Quake Champions will be much more modern in its design.

While details on Quake Champions were kept fairly minimal during the press conference, they did mention that the game would be class based. Already, that makes Champions a departure from the Quake formula that was built around player skill separating the field.

According to a Bethesda press release, the new Quake will be built around “Champions” rather than players. They describe these champions as “a roster of fierce warriors, each with unique attributes and abilities, which enable players to compete in their own distinctive style.” It’s basically the opposite of what Quake really was.

The result of this change is that Quake Champions becomes something closer to Overwatch than classic Quake. For people who want to support Quake as a franchise or Bethesda/id, there’s nothing wrong with the direction of Quake. They’ll just follow it along with their wallets. The problem is that people have to get sick of Overwatch and want a similar substitute for them to even be interested in Quake Champions. Bethesda and id obviously considered that when developing Doom. They could have made a generic first-person shooter but instead they made something different from the status quo for modern gaming. It doesn’t look like that is the case for Quake Champions.

As I mentioned, information apart from framerate (uncapped), server tick rate (120 Hz) and platform (PC) hasn’t been announced. Bethesda has promised more information at Quake Con in August. It will be interesting to see how the change in direction will go over there.